Monday, February 24, 2014

My christmas present from Molly this year was a trip to Fontainebleau -- how cool is that?? To my surprise, she chose late February as the time to go, which made me skeptical at first but as it turns out it was the perfect time to visit. The temperatures were very nice around 10 degrees and apart from the occasional rain (which you can't avoid at any time of year really) it was great climbing weather. We climbed 5 out of the 7 days, which was quite productive and had an amazing time discovering the secrets of the forest. It was Molly's first time there and she fell in love with it immediately so it's safe to say we'll return soon...

Saturday, February 15, 2014

It seems that every time Nick comes to visit in the winter we go to Ticino. Last time two years ago the avy situation was horrible and we went bouldering in Chironico. This year, the weekend in the north was marked by yet another Föhn storm with temperatures in some valleys approaching 20-degrees... luckily, there are insane amounts of snow in Ticino so the choice was obvious. We headed up Poncione di Tremorgio above Ambri -- didn't quite make it to the summit, the snow started to get slabby and there seemed to be a storm moving in so we turned around just below Lago di Cara. On the map, we saw what appeared to be a beautiful glade running most of the way down to the steep forest trail, and apparently the ridge that separated it from the rest of the route was enough for most people to not bother. The five minutes of extra skinning paid off and we had beautiful open trees most of the way down with untouched powder -- awesome! We finished the day off in classic Nick and Rok fashion by missing the trail out slightly and getting stuck in a gully filled with half-melted concrete snow. Brought back fond memories of the Cascades...

Saturday, February 1, 2014

The winter has been crap in the north so it wasn't until now (late January) that Romain and I finally got to take advantage of some mid-week pre-work powder... Axel celebrated his first day of joblessness by joining us as well. We headed to Hüenerchopf, an easy mountain that we skied last year as the final outing of the season. Quite different conditions now with 10-20cm or so of nice powder all the way from top to bottom. The snow exceeded expectations and we were glad to have gotten up early because on the way down we passed at least 20 other people...

one of the nice things about this tour is the constant view of the Churfristen

Axel thinking about what a good idea it was to celebrate his new freedom by skiing instead of drinking